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Chicago Board of Education members aligned with the mayor again pushed Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday to hold a special legislative session to allocate more funding to public schools.
Their calls come as Chicago Public Schools finalizes a roughly $10 billion budget proposal for the coming school year. Officials have been working to close a more than $700 million deficit projected earlier this spring.
Schools had to approve their proposed budgets in early June, but the district has yet to release full details around what might be cut. The Chicago Teachers Union joined Mayor Brandon Johnson-aligned board members at Wednesday’s press conference outside the Board of Education headquarters where they called for state lawmakers to again consider raising education funding through progressive tax policies that target wealthy individuals or corporations.
Khari Humphries, the city’s deputy mayor of education and youth, also joined elected board member Jitu Brown and appointed members Michilia Blaise, Karen Zaccor, Norma Rios-Sierra, Emma Lozano, Angel Velez, Cydney Wallace, and Debby Pope.
Illinois lawmakers attempted to begin the process to raise education funding through a millionaire’s tax, but that legislation ultimately stalled before they adjourned at the end of May.
“If the Hippocratic Oath in medicine says, first of all, do no harm, can the state of Illinois say they have not done harm to Illinois children?” Brown said to reporters.
CPS is expected to publicly reveal its budget plan by mid-July and wants the board to approve it by July 30, but some board members said that timeline feels rushed. A delay in Cook County property taxes has placed extra pressure on the budget, officials said.
The state budget increased education funding for school districts by $350 million this year for a total of $9.2 billion. But many districts, including CPS, are still short of what the state’s evidence-based formula considers as an adequate level of money. Even if lawmakers reconvene this summer, it’s not clear how quickly any extra money would make it to school districts like CPS.
“We are facing decisions that no city should ever have to make,” Humphries said during the press conference.
The district is expecting about $100 million from the city’s special taxing districts, known as TIF dollars, which the mayor and City Council control. That’s a fraction of the more than $500 million in TIF last year for CPS, a portion of which went back to the city for pension obligations.
Brown said board members are asking the city to release more TIF dollars. Humphries said he can’t say whether the city will do so. At a board meeting later Wednesday, acting chief financial officer Wally Stock also said CPS is “not trying to be aggressive” but is also having those discussions with the city.
During Wednesday’s meeting, however, CPS CEO Macquline King said the district is working through “different avenues” for help, including pressing the county for some relief.
“There is a sense of urgency,” King said.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
